CAINAN. - 1. Heb. Qēnān, Gk. Καϊναν (-αμ), son of Enosh (Gen. 5:9; 1 Chron. 1:2), grandson of Seth, great-grandson of Adam, died at the age of 910 (Gen. 5:14), mentioned by St. Luke (3:37) in the genealogy of Christ.
2. Καϊναν, another ancestor of Christ according to St. Luke (3:30), who calls him the son of Arphaxad, grandson of Shem, great-grandson of Noah and father of Salah. In the corresponding passage of Gen. 10:24; 11:12 (cf. 1 Chron. 1:18) he is named in the Septuagint, but not in the Hebrew (and the Vulgate), in which the line of descent passes directly from Arphaxad to Salah.
Regarding both texts, that of Gen. and that of St. Luke, commentators hold differing opinions. Some believe that Gen. 10:24 is to be supplied in the Hebrew text on the basis of the Greek (thus, for example, Kittel suggests in the Biblia Hebraica [3rd ed., Stuttgart 1920]), or, as regards St. Luke, that C. does not belong to the form written by the Evangelist, being absent from codex D (of Beza). More commonly the tendency is to believe that for Gen. the Hebrew is preferable, confirmed also by the Samaritan Pentateuch, ancient and authoritative, and that St. Luke does no more than report the genealogy as it is derived from the Septuagint. Giovanni Rinaldi